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Blues play flat in first loss of series

In last nights’ game, the Blues had a chance to close out the series on home ice and get more rest before the second round for themselves and Paul Stastny, who has now missed the last 14 games. Pietrangelo talked about the Blues needing that “killer instinct” to finish off a series when they had the chance. Not only did the Blues not have that “killer instinct” they played flat. The Minnesota Wild came out fast, aggressive, and desperate. The Blues however, came out slow and “too casual” as Pietrangelo had said. Yeo talked about the Blues needing to play as the aggressors and not to wait to see what the Wild bring to us. To me, and I’m sure for other fans watching the game, the Wild were the aggressors to start the game and we let them come at us. The Wild were playing desperate and the Blues were not. The Blues didn’t start being the aggressors until it was too late and Charlie Coyle scored on a gift from Allen. Even though Allen made a bad play to give the Wild their first lead of the series, by no means was the loss on Allen’s shoulders. Allen is the reason the Blues still have a 3-1 lead in this series.

The third period was probably the Blues best period last night but they couldn’t get the puck past Dubnyk. The Blues were not getting to the middle of the ice and getting shots. A lot of their shots were from the outside, you have to give credit to the Wild for keeping the Blues to the outside, much like the Blues have done all series, but the Blues needed to show more desperation throughout the whole game to have a better chance at winning this one and because of the lack of desperation to start the game, the Blues paid for it and because the Wild had the lead, it allowed them to sit back and protect it.

The Blues still have time to regroup and come out and play more desperate, we still have a 3-1 series lead and I think any Blues fan would’ve loved to have that kind of lead before the series started. There is another two-day break in between games for the Blues and Wild so it gives the Blues an extra day to regroup and more time for Stastny to hopefully return for game 5. Saturday’s game time is at 2 pm. Lets all hope the Blues come out as a more desperate team and finish this series in 5 games.